In my new Amazon release, The Physician’s Irish Lady, the heroine is about to board a train and splurges on a second class ticket, since she can’t abide sitting in the open third class car. But now, she doesn’t have enough cash to buy a meal on the train. Her solution is to buy a loaf of bread to munch on during the long ride.

So, what type of coin would be required to purchase such a meal?

According to the reference book, The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s, in the early 1800s in mostly rural America, money was rarely used. Farmers relied on barter or trade to make purchases, most never having seen a silver dollar.

By mid to late 1800, the situation changed as people left farming to work at jobs in the growing cities. By this time, more ready made goods of a wide variety were available for purchase.

Coinage changed over the years with such names as bit, coppers, dime, eagle and double eagle, elevenpence, fip, gold dollar, silver dollar, half cent, half dime and half dollar. The wide variety of currency names were due to the influence of English, Spanish and other foreign coinage. Some coins even had nicknames, as in levy for elevenpence. There were also combination coins as in: three-cent piece, three-dollar gold piece, twenty-cent piece and two-cent piece.

Paper money was known as United States Notes. The legal tender notes or greenbacks had been issued by the US government in 1862 in the northern states, during the Civil War. The original dollar bill didn’t have a portrait of George Washington, but instead Salmon Chase, Secretary of Treasury, in the upper left hand corner. The familiar George Washington dollar bill was first printed in 1869.

Source: The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s by Marc McCutcheon. Writer’s Digest Books, 1993, Cincinnati, Ohio

Jake inclined his head. Captain Montgomery and Erin O’Connell. An unlikely pair if he ever saw one. He’d have to scrounge up some laundry for washing today so he could find out what the hell was going on.

****
After being deposited in what Captain Montgomery had said was her tent, Erin glanced at the interior of the A-shaped canvas structure. A cot with a thin, lumpy mattress topped with coarse, wool blankets and a worn patchwork quilt occupied a small space. In one corner of the tent, a small wooden table stood and held a wood-framed hand mirror, comb, brush, and hairpins. A heavy, gray cloak and cloth bonnet dangled from a peg screwed into the post supporting the tent. Looking homemade, a small, braided rug covered straw spread over the dirt floor. Home sweet home.

Thinking back to the captain, she recalled his hard, muscular arm beneath the sleeve of his coat and shivered. Doc had called him Will. He had taken her hand and threaded it through the crook of his elbow as he’d escorted her to this tent. While they moved through the row of tents, Captain Montgomery took care to keep her skirts from brushing against smoking fires that rose from shallow dug-out pits along the way. He’d also sternly warned her to stay off horses. As if she’d even consider climbing onto one.

Moving closer to the cot, her booted foot hit something hard beneath it and pulled her thoughts from the image and sandalwood and leather scent of Will Montgomery. Crouching, she found a ceramic, lidded pot and a large, brown trunk beneath the bed.

“I must tell you, Elliot, as I waited for your return, I had a premonition you’d be bringing home a guest.”

Elliot shifted in his seat, noting Miss Fagan’s raised brows.

“Oh, yes,” Millie continued. “I knew he would have someone with him, so I aired out the guest room.”

Miss Fagan gaped. “You have the sight?”

Millie nodded. “You could call it that. I see and sometimes dream things before they happen, if that’s your meaning.”

Miss Fagan turned to Elliot. “Me grandmother had the sight, too.”

Elliot cleared his throat. He did his best to discourage his aunt’s fantasies, but for now, simply wanted to sidestep the subject. “Well, since the room is ready, perhaps you could escort Miss Fagan upstairs. I’m sure she’s very tired.”

“Of course, my dear.” Millie rose. “I’ll show you to your room and prepare a bath in the bathing room.”

“Bathing room?” Miss Fagan glanced at Elliot who rose and stepped to the doorway.

“Yes, Miss Fagan. We have a pulley that brings fresh water from the well. The used water is drained out through pipes and empties beyond the garden.”

Her eyes rounded. “Well, I’ve never seen the like.” She turned toward Millie.

“Come, Miss Fagan. I’ll show you how it works after you’re settled in your room.”

Once Millie had led Miss Fagan upstairs, Elliot settled in his favorite chair, the one Miss Fagan had taken. Her scent still lingered. He pulled out a cigar and lit it, trying not to imagine Miss Fagan disrobing in the bathing room on the second floor.

Blurb: Keara Fagan is falsely accused of insurrection against the British and sentenced to indentured servitude in Australia. The Irish native escapes on a ship bound for America with no money and the clothes on her back. Now, she must stay on the run while trying to survive in a strange land.

As Dr. Elliot James travels by train from Philadelphia to York, a young woman faints at his feet. He’s sworn, as a physician, to aid the sick and injured, but fears this woman needs more than medical help. Enchanted by her beauty and touched by her dignity, he buys her a meal and offers her a place to stay in his small Pennsylvania town.

But a mysterious Irishman pursues her to the idyllic town surrounded by scenic farmland. Is he the abusive husband come to claim his runaway wife, or someone more sinister?

In my upcoming January 2014 release, The Physician’s Irish Lady, an American Victorian romance set in the late 19th century, one of the minor characters, the maiden aunt of the hero, believes she has visions and dreams of things to come.

Although the Victorian era was a time of scientific discovery and technological advances, the Victorians seemed to be obsessed by the supernatural. Many people believed in ghosts, fairies, physic phenomena and telepathy. They also thought it possible to communicate with the dead. The Ouija board was popular and table knocking and automatic writing were thought to be the deceased means of speaking with the living.

Occult and spiritual religions also abounded. The ability to foresee the future through dreams and visions were also common beliefs during this period.

Popular authors of the day such as Charles Dickens and Bram Stoker fueled these beliefs with their stories depicting ghosts and dark occult creatures. But the authors themselves were affected by these beliefs. Dickens believed he could heal the sick by entering them in a deep hypnotic state. However, Dickens was a very rational man as well as a skeptic.

Death was a big part of the average Victorian’s life. They observed many rituals and mementos of lost loved ones were popular, such as the photos of the dead and hair jewelry containing a lock from a lost loved one. The idea of proving life went on after the physical body was gone led to a spiritualism movement. Mediums, thought to have the ability to communicate with the dead, became popular and as a result, fraud was easy to perpetrate on people desperate to speak to their lost relatives.

The Fox sisters were famous mediums and made a lot of money by convincing people table “rappings” were spirits trying to communicate with the living. But Margaret Fox confessed in 1888 that it had all been a hoax.

Perhaps the Victorian belief in the supernatural was their way of coping with all the scientific discoveries and technological advances inundating their world.

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Victorian Romance

About the Author

Susan Macatee writes American Civil War romance, some with a paranormal twist. From time travels to vampire tales, her stories are always full of love and adventure.

She’s spent many years as a Civil War civilian reenactor with the 28th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment. She's a wife, mother of three grown sons, and has recently become a grandmother. She spends her free time inhaling books, watching baseball games and favorite old movies.